It’s the first week of March: How long has it been since you fell off your New Year’s diet resolution wagon? Now that you’ve made your annual late-winter resolution to swear off ineffective dieting, you might want to check out this research from Ruopeng An, at the University Of Champlain. An claims to have uncovered a magic elixir that can melt your dadbod away, and the best part of it is it’s already flowing straight from your kitchen sink, for free.

An studied the dietary habits of 18,300 U.S. adults and found that people who consumed more water also consumed 68-to-205 fewer calories, 78-to-235 fewer grams of sodium, 5-to-18 fewer grams of sugar, and 7-to-21 fewer grams of cholesterol. An found that the average American consumed 4.2 cups of water daily, but only 30 percent of that was pure H2O. And, for every one-percent increase in plain water consumed, people consumed 8.6 fewer calories. Add a cup of water, lose an extraneous 172 calories, and your love handles might go with them.

The good news doesn’t stop there. Plain old tap water works as well as anything else; the results appeared consistent across races, ethnicities, income and education levels. And — this is the best part — water seems to work better for guys than women or children. Then again, maybe that diet you just swore off of will work perfectly for your wife.